BISHOP HOUGH. In these I presume then that you will not include poverty, sickness, casualties, and those things which are common to every period of life.

MR. LYTTELTON. Certainly not; at least no further than they are aggravated by age.

BISHOP GIBSON. And yet against that aggravation should be opposed this circumstance; that the aged, at least those who have been provident, are generally more protected against want, and less liable to casualties, than the young.

BISHOP HOUGH. Perhaps we may fairly set the one against the other. I shall therefore venture to exclude them

from the account; and adopting the Ciceronian arrangement, class the inconveniences of age under the four following heads:-1st. that it unfits for public life;-2nd. is attended by infirmity of body;-3d. diminishes the power of animal enjoyment;-and 4th. is a state of anxiety on account of the approach of death.

MR. LYTTELTON. Is not the failure of memory to be included under the inconveniences of age?

BISHOP HOUGH.

Certainly. But I

consider it wherever it exists, whether

in

age or youth, as an infirmity which may unfit for public life; protesting however that, with exception of cases where the constitution has been originally

defective or the memory impaired by non-exercise, the recollection of the aged is in general detailed and minute. The fact indeed has been often noticed, that the oldest witnesses are more clear and distinct in their testimony, than the younger. But to consider the first objection of unfitness for public life. There is no doubt but that the aged are less fit for enterprises, which require bodily activity and strength: but they are not therefore disqualified for the conduct of business, or less fit for counsel, advice, or direction. And I must observe that in the Government of Empires, it is knowledge and experience, not youth, and temerity, that are essential. The advantages of young counsellors have been proverbial, ever since the revolution which followed the death of

Solomon. Need I, Mr. Lyttelton, to one of your scale of intellect, observe that with civilized man, it is counsel not force, mind not body, that must govern. Agamemnon in his speech to the aged NESTOR, did not wish for the athletic strength of youth, but for the experienced wisdom of age, to conquer Troy; as Mr. Pope has well translated it :

O would the Gods, in love to Greece, decree But ten such sages as they grant in thee! Such wisdom soon should Priam's force destroy, And soon should fall the haughty towers of Troy.

It was not by corporeal but by intellectual vigour, that our Royal master, WILLIAM, and our English HERO, MarlBOROUGH, performed those great achievments for the preservation of our civil

and religious liberties, and for the salvation of Europe. It was not muscular strength, but mental reflection working by experience that instructed the former to baffle the intrigues of Lewis, aiming at universal monarchy; and when in January 1704 the Emperor of Germany, alarmed at the progress of the French arms, and at the defection of the Duke of Bavaria, implored the aid and protection of the Queen and People of England to save the Roman empire from impending ruin, it was acuteness and sagacity of mind, that enabled Marlborough to compel the surrender of the entire French army at BLENHEIM, and in one day to annihilate the tyrannic and destructive power of France.-Among those who congratulated our deliverer upon his